Caught on camera: Detroit's wild side to provide important animal research information

University of Michigan research using motion-triggered trail cameras in Detroit parks to learn more about how carnivores live their lives in the big city.
Keith Matheny, Detroit Free Press

University of Michigan researcher using motion-sensing trail cameras in Detroit parks, in three-month study of how the city's meat-eating animals live alongside humans

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Asst. Professor Nyeema Harris sets up a trail camera with the help of prospective PHD student Ke Zhang at Palmer Park in Detroit for her lab Applied Wildlife Ecology that monitors movements of possible carnivores in the area like racoon, canadian lynx, and bobcats, photographed on Friday, Nov. 17, 2017.(Photo: Kimberly P. Mitchell, Detroit Free Press)Buy Photo

Critters of Detroit, smile! You're on candid (trail) camera, from now until February.

A University of Michigan researcher is expanding her work on the largest camera-trap study ever conducted of Michigan wildlife, in which the images of animals in their habitat are captured using using motion-triggered cameras. The study has previously focused on remote parts of the Upper Peninsula and woodsy areas of the northern Lower Peninsula and mid-Michigan.

But now Nyeema Harris wants to learn how meat-eating animals in the city of Detroit live their secretive lives.

"We’re really excited to see the wildlife community that’s in Detroit, and we’re going to compare that to other parts throughout the state of Michigan," said Harris, an assistant professor in U-M's Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.

University of Michigan assistant professor Nyeema Harris is researching the behavior of carnivores in Detroit, using motion-triggered trail cameras in more than two dozen city parks. Here, an opossum scurries past the camera at Eliza Howell park in Detroit's Brightmoor neighborhood.(Photo: Nyeema Harris, University of Michigan)

The study is focusing on carnivores, animals that eat meat. So Harris said she expects to capture images of raccoons, coyotes, opossums, maybe even bobcats.

"We’re trying to see what’s actually here," she said.

The researcher received city permission to install the cameras in 26 parks throughout the city, where they will gather shots from now until February. Once the winter survey is done, Harris and her team will trek back out to retrieve their equipment and examine what images were captured. But because the city survey allows for good cell phone reception, Harris said, she's also using some cellular cameras that send images to her e-mail inbox as they're shot in the woods.

Harris said she plans to come back to the city for a summer series of research as well. She and her team are putting an emphasis on avoiding paved walkways and other areas where people would be more likely to be captured on-camera, she said.

"We're not here trying to monitor people; we're monitoring wildlife," she said, adding all parks in which the research is occurring will have signs informing park-goers.

There are many questions to answer about how carnivores live in Detroit, and how it compares with their more rural counterparts, Harris said.

"We're thinking about what time of day an animal is active — does that vary in an urban site in comparison to a rural site?" she said. "Are they using the habitat differently because they are co-existing with people and traffic and stores and schools nearby?"

The team is also collecting animal feces, which can provide a wealth of information about the animals' lives.

"Do the coyotes in Detroit eat something different than the coyotes in the U.P., for example?" Harris said.

The fecal analysis will also check for microbes and parasites, to see whether they are different when wild animals are in closer proximity to domestic dogs and cats, she said.

"We're also looking at their stress hormones, which we can get from their feces as well," she said. "Are they more stressed in an urban space?"

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Univ. of Mich. Asst. Professor for the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Nyeema Harris walks through Palmer Park in Detroit with prospective P.H.D. student Ke Zhang, of Beijing China to place trail cameras to monitor movements of possible carnivores in the area.(Photo: Kimberly P. Mitchell, Detroit Free Press)

Assisting Harris in trail cam installation in Palmer Park on Friday was U-M prospective PhD candidate Ke Zhang, a recent graduate from the University of Florida's Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation.

"I did some similar research before, but this project is different," he said. "It's a more urban area, so there will definitely be more influence from interaction with human activities."

The study locations — which, in addition to Detroit, include the 10,000-acre U-M Biological Station near Pellston; the Shiawassee National Wildlife Refuge near Saginaw and in the Upper Peninsula north of Marquette — provide a gradient of animal information moving from very remote and rural areas to highly urbanized ones, Harris said. It will help inform both wildlife management and conservation efforts, she said.

As climate, habitats and how people live and use urban areas all change, Harris said her research might provide insights into how the animals living nearby will respond.

Is Harris worried about her cameras in a city with high crime rates? They're literally off the beaten path, and are locked to trees, so they wouldn't exactly be an easy heist.

University of Michigan assistant professor Nyeema Harris is researching the behavior of carnivores in Detroit, using motion-triggered trail cameras in more than two dozen city parks. Here, a raccoon gets curious about the camera in the Brightmoor neighborhood's Eliza Howell Park.(Photo: Nyeema Harris, University of Michigan)

"That's a risk we take every time we put an expensive piece of equipment in the middle of nowhere," she said, adding that the cameras have tags explaining who she is and the camera's purpose.

Harris said she is reaching out to schools and community groups to inform them about the park trail-cam research, to answer their questions, address their concerns and see whether they want to get involved. Anyone with questions can e-mail carnivores@umich.edu.

The project also needs the public's help in another way: Because the camera project will generate hundreds of thousands of images, the university created Michigan ZoomIN, a website where anyone can go and help identify animals captured in the photos, once they're posted. The address is www.zooniverse.org/projects/michiganzoomin/michigan-zoomin.